Buffalo announces a tiny Skype phone with attached keyboard

If you have an office that’s as cluttered with gadgets as mine, you tend to appreciate convergence products. You have to be picky about which functions you want to have packed into a single device. For instance, a webcam built into your monitor might be cool, however, a mouse that’s also a label printer is not. (Yes, such a thing does exist). Here’s one that I’m pretty undecided on. It’s a Skype phone that’s built into your keyboard.

I’ve never actually seen the point in having a Skype phone, as I’ve found using the same headset for making calls and chatting with guildmates online to be easiest. Of course, not everyone has a headset lying around, and most people are used to talking on a normal phone, which is where this comes in. It really seems like a good idea, as you’re probably not going to be moving your phone or your keyboard far from your computer. However, to keep the keyboard a decent size, they had to make the phone receiver extremely tiny. This is where they’ll likely lose people. I know that I wouldn’t want to hold onto a phone that small for the duration of a lengthy call.

Look for Buffalo to launch this in Japan this October for around $65. There’s currently no word on a US release.